The Star Tribune recently covered the start of construction on the Norman and Evangeline Hagfors Center for Science, Business, and Religion — Augsburg College’s much anticipated interdisciplinary academic building scheduled to open in January 2018. The article notes that the capital campaign for this building project was the most successful in the College’s history and so far has generated $54 million, which is eight times more than Augsburg has ever raised.

The story also acknowledges the generosity of the building’s lead donors, describing Norm Hagfor’s career success and the decades-long connection the Hagfors family developed with Augsburg.

Neal Karlen, a mentor in Augsburg College’s Master of Arts in Creative Writing program, described the unlikely friendship he developed with music icon Prince in a recent Star Tribune column. Karlen is among an elite group of writers granted in-depth interviews with Prince in the mid-1980s. Over time, discussions between the print writer and the songwriter developed into something akin to friendship, according Karlen.

“I always told Prince I knew he really didn’t consider me a friend, but as one of the few people in Minneapolis who was probably awake, like he always was, in the middle of the night, and was ‘Willing and Able,’ as my favorite song of his is titled, to talk about loneliness and death,” Karlen wrote.

A reporter from the Minneapolis Star Tribune recently was on campus to interview Diana Pierce ’16 MAL, a longtime Twin Cities news anchor whose retirement from KARE 11 News was announced Wednesday. Pierce completed her Master of Art in Leadership at Augsburg College in December, and she will participate in Augsburg’s 2016 Commencement ceremonies.

Although she will be retiring from KARE 11, Pierce has not finished her work of “helping shape stories that provide a voice for the underserved.” She will use her degree to move behind the camera and produce documentaries. “It’s a weird, wonderful transition,” she said.

Retiring KARE 11 anchor Diana Pierce MAL ’16 recently credited the graduate degree she is scheduled to receive at Augsburg College for her optimism toward the future.

“We’ll see what doors are open that weren’t in the past, as a result of getting a master’s. For me, I look at it as an additional set of skills,” Pierce said. “I’m looking into several different opportunities. [The advanced degree] lets me think there is life after broadcasting. Now I feel prepared for it.”

Pierce recently announced her retirement after having worked for the station for more than 32 years.

Augsburg College History Professor Phil Adamo appears on set with Diana Pierce at KARE 11.

Longtime KARE 11 news anchor Diana Pierce ’16 MAL recently announced her retirement from broadcasting in the Twin Cities market after more than 30 years on air. In a story on the KARE 11 website, Pierce said, “The timing is excellent,” for the change because she will graduate from Augsburg College’s Master of Arts in Leadership program this spring and will pursue new opportunities with her master’s degree. To learn more about Pierce’s award-winning journalism career, read the following stories:

The Minneapolis Star Tribune recently interviewed former Augsburg College basketball player and retired NBA star Devean George ’99 about the upcoming retirement of legendary Los Angeles Lakers player Kobe Bryant. George, who retired in 2011, played his first seven seasons in the NBA alongside Bryant.

George said that he knows Bryant is ready to retire from professional sports because he has seen familiar signs from his own retirement. “What I’ve seen him go through this year, you can see the flame is not there and he knows it’s time,” he said. “It’s the old cliché: Father Time, no one can beat it. There comes a time where no one wins. Basketball is a young man’s sport. It’s that simple.”

The Minneapolis Star Tribune recently published an article about the life and career of Phil Adamo, professor of history at Augsburg College and 2015 Minnesota Professor of the Year.

The article focuses on Adamo’s engaging approach to teaching history and his personal history with academia. As a young man, he decided to forgo a college education in favor of a career as a clown with the Ringling Bros. Circus. Eventually, the constant demands of performance wore him down. “I was exhausted by performing so much, and I started to think that I wasn’t funny,” he said. “That’s a bad thing for a clown.”

Returning from the circus, he enrolled as a medieval studies major at Ohio State University, where a senior project involving a summer in a monastery led to an award-winning dissertation and propelled him toward a career in academia.

The article also depicts Adamo as an ardent supporter of having a liberal arts education, which he says “gives the benefit of having a better life, a more interesting life, a better understanding of who you are as a human.”

On February 25, former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and retired astronaut Captain Mark Kelly, co-founders of Americans for Responsible Solutions, joined Minnesota leaders at Augsburg College to announce a new bipartisan organization, the “Minnesota Coalition for Common Sense.” The coalition’s members – which include leaders from across sectors and parties – will urge their elected officials to advance policies that help keep guns out of the wrong hands.

Giffords was wounded severely during a 2011 shooting that resulted in six deaths. She and husband, Kelly, have announced similar coalitions in New Hampshire and Oregon during the past several months.

Augsburg College PresidentPaul Pribbenow welcomed the event’s guests to campus and offered opening remarks at the press conference.

Jeanne Boeh, professor of economics at Augsburg College, was one of several experts quoted in a recent Star Tribune article on the current state of Minnesota’s economy. She attributes Minnesota’s steady economy to its diversity, which makes it less dependent on agriculture than neighboring states.

“Because we’re a diversified economy, we will keep trudging along at a lukewarm pace and eventually the labor shortages will happen and employers will raise wage rates more in order to get good workers,” Boeh said. “I think we are OK.”

The Minneapolis Star Tribune recently published an article covering World Hijab Day events at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minnesota.

The article featured photos of Augsburg College students who hosted the Hijab Fashion Show at Augsburg. Students at Normandale and Augsburg hosted events in support of Muslim students and were joined by non-Muslim students in a show of solidarity.

Photos of Augsburg College students featured in the paper included Aisha Barre, Anisa Ahmed, Nahili Abdulahi and Juweria Hassan, who participated in the fashion show. Similar events have been taking place across the country in reaction to divisive rhetoric and anti-Muslim sentiment, the article notes.